


The Let Down Reflex

by bheurach



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alpha/Alpha Relationship, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Male Lactation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:55:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27773374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bheurach/pseuds/bheurach
Summary: An abstract from the Journal for Omega Health - "On the Care of Postabeo Omegas": It is not, as the commonly held assumption asserts - impossible for omegas to re-enter estrous after the death of their mate. While uncommon it is vital to understand the signs that mark the so-called "spontaneous" estrous cycle. Exploratory studies have found that subjects exposed to α pheromones for a prolonged period of time (defined in this study as the variable t) and presented with the trigger do experience the Let Down Reflex. The presence of this reflex in these postabeo Omegas is a primary indicator of returning fertility and the onset of estrous.Sebastien is the Guard's first omega. Sebastien has been mourning his wife for several decades. No matter how much his heart may want it no one has much use for a faulty omega, especially not his bonded alpha packmates.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Comments: 7
Kudos: 83





	The Let Down Reflex

**Author's Note:**

  * For [j_gabrielle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_gabrielle/gifts).



> This is a gift for the wonderful powerhouse of Sebastien/Joe/Nicky content - j_gabrielle! I erroneously promised her a fic in return for turning the spicy lemon ask I sent into a full-blown fic, and so a few weeks later I have the first chapter ready to go. This is the first fic I'm posting in like two years so it might all be hot garbage but I hope you have fun reading it because I had a ton of fun writing it.

It’s been several decades since Sebestien’s last pup passed, but seeing children being hurt still affects him deeply. The long years since he weaned his youngest aren’t enough to stop the wails of the baby he had carried triggering his let-down. It was even harder to pass off the baby once they got back to town, he was so quiet and sweet with the scent of milk. The distraught mother that snatched her child from his arms didn’t hurt, but what she muttered under her breath as she scented her baby,  _ Alpha _ , rings like a curse in his ears. His new pack tells him the memories of his life before will fade in time, but nothing seems to ease the sting of his alpha brother’s competitive jabs over the pretty omega girls, or the disgust in his father’s voice as he presented as an omega. He misses the soft voice and firm hand of his wife, helping him feel small and protected as a good omega should. The world has changed so much, Lord help him but Booker is a coward and it feels harder each passing year.

Booker isn’t the only one that can’t bear the hurt of children, Andy leaves on the next train to England with promises to reconvene in a year, Berlin she promises will be fun this time. It feels wrong to be cut from the pack Alpha, but Andy is older than the trees and an ungainly husk of omega isn’t enough to make anyone want to stay. Especially not a woman that was raised to pagan divinity and charged with ensuring the fertility of virginal omegas. 

Nicky and Joe do not seem to hold such convictions about staying with the pack, most often it seems that they are a pack of two wrangled by Andy in the direction of her newest mission. Avoidance, Booker maintenance is different than cowardice, and as the only professional in the matter does not need to seek second opinions. So he doesn’t ask where they will be spending their year, instead, he heads to find the ticket booth and a nice place to spend drunk and alone. 

“Booker!” Joe has to jog to match pace with Booker, “We were thinking it’s about time for you to see Malta”

Almost a millennia on, the swords they wielded during the crusades are rusted past use and displayed with pride announcing that these men were capable warriors and protectors. The practice of displaying weapons to signify the strength of the Alpha that lived there had died out centuries before Booker was born, but he knows the display is still deeply meaningful to his brothers. The whole house radiates warmth and all Booker wants to curl up in the bay window and sleep for the next hundred years. Booker is always conscious of his height and aims to stand as still and unobtrusively in the corner as Joe and Nicky settle into their home. Joe has been sent with a strict list and an even stricter budget to the open-air market, Nicky huffs as the door closes behind him - a soft little breath that seems to express more love than most people will experience in their whole lives. Booker wishes he had settled into the window seat while Joe was still here to draw Nicky’s gaze, he loves his pack but in his brothers’ den, he feels wrong-footed and clumsy. 

“Let’s get you settled, hmm Basti?” Nicky’s arm on his waist is a gentle guide, a friendly gesture Booker reminds himself.

“This is your home, I can find a hotel-”

“Booker,” and Booker flushes at Nicky’s tone, “this is our home and we  _ want _ to share it with you” 

Booker takes a half step back realizing he had been encroaching on Nicky’s personal space and allows himself a breath to re-center which doesn’t work as well as he had hoped. Nicky leads him to the room, but the heat of his hand soaks through Booker’s shirt and sears his skin. Nicky doesn't mention it and all Booker can hope for is that his flush of embarrassment hadn’t spread to his face. 

It’s worth the embarrassment, to see his own bay window and the bookshelves filled with first editions and literary works that have been lost to the outside world. The basket full of pillows and blankets tucked into the corner are thoughtful but unneeded, he hasn’t been stricken since he was conscripted into The Grande Armée. The room is beautiful and he wonders why they bothered to include it in the designs, as far as he knows his brothers do not welcome visitors in Malta. 

Over dinner they discuss their plans for showing Booker the city, he is losing the argument badly and who is he to deny them the opportunity to play tourists. The warmth in his belly from the company and the local wine helps him forget the lingering tightness in his chest. He jokes as they retire that the ache in his back was due to the prolonged arguing over dinner and that perhaps they would be more considerate of their elders next time. Joe’s movements are telegraphed and sloppy as they tend to be when he is tired, but he still manages to grip Booker’s shoulder after using his neck as a guide as he bids him a good night.

It only takes him half a bottle of whiskey to feel the pull of sleep, they must have drunk more wine at dinner than he thought. The sheets are freshly cleaned and Booker is oddly sad despite not having to suffer through the dust and damp that plagues most of their safe houses and boltholes. He hasn’t heard the alphas across the hall since they retired, and hopes that means that walls are soundproof. 

Booker wakes not with saltwater and screams that are not his own, but the damp of sweat-soaked clothes. Everything is at once too rough, cold, and hot. In a half-sleep, he manages to strip, down a few more fingers of whiskey, and pull some blankets from the basket. Shivering he falls into a familiar if uneasy sleep.

Booker couldn’t tell if it was the blinding morning light and subsequent hangover or the cramping pain that woke him up, but it was unquestionably the scream that made it past his lips that caused Nicky and Joe to burst into his room heavily armed and lightly clothed. Booker is dying, he knows this feeling intimately in all its many variations but it has never been so painful that he couldn’t contain himself. 

His screams morphed into sobs when Joe scoops him off the bed, Sebastien can’t seem to stop himself clawing at Joe’s shirt - held tight against the alpha’s chest and fighting to be closer still. 

Nicky notices the slick running down Booker’s thigh isn’t sweat, that the simple press of an alpha’s bare skin was enough to lessen the worst of the heat pains. 

“ _ Sebastien is in heat,”  _ Nicky gestures to the cooling puddle of slick and bloody discharge on the bed

_ “What can we do Habibi?” _ Joe hadn’t cared for an omega in heat since his wife many centuries ago, and Nicky hadn’t been with anyone until Joe.

_ “It seems to be a...re-presentation. He’s wet but still soft,” _ Not that they can be sure, no omega has lived long enough to leave the dormant cycle after their mate died.

_ “Hopefully,” _ Joe mutters into Booker’s hair  _ “holding him will be enough.” _

The rapid-fire conversation taken place around him doesn’t matter until Booker feels the heat of a second alpha approach. The nest he is lowered into is still warm and covered in his alpha’s scent. He feels fuzzy, but manages to reach out to the other alpha in invitation; spreading his thighs to entice him closer. 

“Please alpha, please!” Sebastien is still crying, hiccuping as he struggles to speak.

_ “Topolino, there's no need for more tears,” _ Nicky pulls Booker against his bare chest, letting the distressed omega scent him. Watching his mate strip off his shirt as he tries to pile a rudimentary nest around the distraught omega before pulling him back into the bed. 

_ “Azizi, we’re here,” _ Joe whispers against Booker’s nape, rubbing his beard against the omega neck. 

The first night he was too floppy and heat drunk to fight against the visions that plagued him while he dreams, but choking on saltwater he died and was revived in a restricting embrace that Sebastien was not accustomed to and tried his best to thrash out of not caring about the bruises and hurt he caused himself in his efforts to get free. Naked and shivering covered in his own sick, his alphas soothe and clean him, they are careful not to entrap him and he is careful not to sleep.

Sebastien keeps trying to tempt the two alphas, they don’t seem interested in mating him but they won’t leave him alone either. They take turns hand feeding him chilled fruit and sips of icy water, he feels stuffed and uncomfortable but manages to keep everything down. Sebastien is content to stay between them full and constantly doused in the scents of two alphas, and if he is small and still at night they even stroke his skin like a spoiled pet which makes it so hard not to break out in giggles and let the doting alphas in on his private game. It seems to take forever but they start to press closer, wearing less clothing in his nest, and sometimes he can feel them thicken against him and start to rut before they stop. Sebastien can’t help but hope that the two alphas decide he is good enough to take for themselves, that he passes the test, and that failure won’t result in being tossed out of his nest. He can’t hold onto his worries and quickly finds himself dozing off content between the two Alphas as the prickles of heat that lingers under his skin spark.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm currently in the midst of not writing a paper worth too much of my grade so chapter 2 and the smut will have to wait for a bit longer. Hopefully chapter two will be an early Christmas gift no belated. I apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes - I am dumb and have no beta reader.


End file.
